Robert Parry Explains Why The Old 'We Need To Stay In Iraq' Ploy Is Bogus
By Winter Patriot on 8/19/2005, 11:40pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

It's always an extreme pleasure --- and a severe challenge --- to post an item based on a column by Robert Parry. His excellent piece of August 17, 2005, is called Iraq & the Logic of Withdrawal. It's compelling reading, and it should be mandatory for all who say "we have to stay in Iraq until the Iraqis can provide their own security".

Washington's conventional wisdom on the Iraq War is roughly divided into two camps: those who still think George W. Bush's invasion was a good idea and want to “stay the course” – and those who opposed Bush on going to war but now say “we must get it right.”

I am not in either camp, as regular readers of this space probably know. And I've been saying at every opportunity. So it's good to see that a very wise observer agrees with me. His take on the issue is a bit different than mine, but we reach the same conclusions. I find that comforting. It's like a math problem --- when you've solved it, you go back and check your work by doing the same problem in a different way. If you get the same answer the second time, you can be fairly sure that your answer is correct.

Both sides – representing nearly the entire political spectrum in Washington – rule out a prompt U.S. military withdrawal because that supposedly would turn Iraq into a “failed state” and a “breeding ground for Islamic terrorism.” Therefore, the thinking goes, U.S. troops must remain while Iraq builds a democracy that can stop the extremists.

But there is a case to be made for U.S. withdrawal as the best option for both resolving the conflict and neutralizing the foreign Islamic extremists in Iraq. A corollary of this thinking holds that the continued U.S. military presence does more harm than good.

More harm than good to Iraq? Or to the USA? I would say "both!"

The logic of withdrawal goes like this:

First, a distinction must be made between the Sunni-led insurgency, which is fighting out of a sense of Iraqi nationalism and to protect the Sunni minority's interests in Iraq, and the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is engaged in a jihad to drive Americans and other Westerners out of the Middle East.

While the interests of the Sunni-led insurgency and the Zarqawi-led terrorists may overlap under the present circumstances, that is primarily because an American force of 138,000 troops remains inside Iraq.

And the rest of the column goes like this.

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